JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: The Federal Minister Sam Rae. Sam, welcome back to News Breakfast.
SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: Good morning James, good to be here.
HOST: Should older Australians have ever had to pay more for showers and things like continence care? Was this in hindsight a mistake?
RAE: James, we always said when we were implementing these generational changes that we'd listen to older people and we'd respond to their experiences of the new system and that's what we're doing here. Obviously older people have made clear that they want showering, they want dressing and continence management considered as clinical care and that's the change that we're making.
HOST: We've been told stories of people skipping showers to save money for example. Do you think this sort of thing was widespread?
RAE: Well again, I spend every day talking to older people and talking to providers of care and I've heard similar stories. I've had the feedback and that's why we've made these changes. We've gone through a careful policy consideration process. Of course this system's only been in place since November. Now's the time to start making the adjustments to get better outcomes for older people.
HOST: At a society-wide level, older Australians are generally a lot wealthier than younger Australians. There's a variety of reasons for that. The Government and the Budget are going to deal with some of them. But these changes were designed as part of a push to get older Australians to pay more for their own care, to do more of the heavy lifting. So I guess the question is, how much does this back down cost the Budget overall?
RAE: Aged care does take up a significant part of the Budget. It's a $40 billion system on an annual basis and it does need to be sustainable. Of course Australians need to have sustainable systems in place when it comes to social care. Look, this cost will be about a billion dollars over the forward estimates but Minister Butler will be standing up at the National Press Club today and speaking more extensively about impacts on the health care Budget more broadly.
HOST: So that's $1 billion over the next four years, right?
RAE: Yeah, that's right, James.
HOST: Okay. So every time we have a state health minister on this show, and even when we don't necessarily ask, usually it's unprompted, they complain about what's known as bed-block. This is when hospitals have older people who need an aged care place, but they can't get one, and therefore they're stuck in hospital indefinitely. When is this situation going to improve, do you think? It's probably one of the biggest things I imagine on your to-do list.
RAE: I think we need to be a little bit careful particularly about the language that is being used here James. Older people have a right to access healthcare in hospitals and hospitals have always had older people in them so I don't always appreciate the language that's being used but there's no doubt that the delayed discharge of older people is an issue in our health care system that's why we're working closely with our state and territory colleagues in order to increase bed supply across the aged care system and to make sure that people get the care that they need the most appropriate care for the circumstances that they face.
HOST: How long is it going to be until we have a sufficient number of aged care beds in this country? Because it doesn't matter which side of politics they are state health ministers say time after time, I mean there's been national meetings about this, they say this is a huge issue putting too much pressure on hospital care in this country.
RAE: Well we certainly have an ageing population and that was somewhat predictable James. It's a bit of a shame that the last government didn't provide for the necessary growth in supply. When it comes to residential aged care beds these projects take anywhere from five to seven years to go from conception through to delivery. Now Minister Butler's going to have more to say about what we're doing in this space. We've spent over a billion dollars in our capital assistance programme just in the last few years in this space but we need about 10,000 aged care beds a year coming online to meet demand and last year we only got about 800. So there's definitely significant work to be done here and that's why Minister Butler will be making some significant contributions in this regard during his press club address today.
HOST: All eyes are going to be on this press club address particularly for news in terms of what's going to happen next to the National Disability Insurance Scheme What sort of big-ticket changes are you expecting out of it?
RAE: Let's be clear. Labor built the NDIS. This is a fantastic system that is designed to serve the needs of people with profound disabilities, lifelong disabilities. But poor stewardship under the Liberals meant that growth in the scheme exploded out to about 22 per cent per year, and that is clearly not sustainable. The changes that Labor has already made in the last few years have got that growth down to 10 per cent. We've got a commitment with the states and territories to further reduce growth to 5-6 per cent make sure that people living with disabilities can get the care that they need and that system remains sustainable.
HOST: Plenty to come on that today you'll be able to see that address here on the ABC. Before I let you go, Minister, do you reckon there is now public support for a windfall tax on gas exports? Because we know there are some members of your own party who are starting to agitate for this.
RAE: There's clearly a discussion going on across the community about such things. I'm pretty sure, James, that the Treasurer would be pretty unhappy if I jumped on your show this morning and started making announcements or weighing in on the Budget processes.
HOST: So you won't give us a personal view? What's your personal view, do you reckon? I reckon some of your branch members think this is an excellent idea.
RAE: James, one of the privileges of serving in the position that I serve in is that I get to be involved in some of these important conversations, but I have to show respect to my colleagues. I don't get the opportunity to go around airing my own personal views. I've got responsibilities to the Government and to the national interest. There's an important conversation that's going on, but I'll leave it to the Treasurer to make those announcements ahead of Budget.
HOST: Sam Rae, thanks for joining us this morning.
RAE: Thank you, James.